Aks Automatic 2025

3. Auto-Scaling (Enabled by Default)

• Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA): Scale pods based on CPU/memory
• Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA): Adjust pod resource requests/limits
• KEDA: Event-driven autoscaling for external triggers

4. Enhanced Security

• Microsoft Entra ID integration for authentication
• Azure RBAC for Kubernetes authorization
• Network policies enabled by default
• Automatic security patches
• Workload identity for pod-level authentication

5. Advanced Networking

• Azure CNI Overlay for efficient IP usage
• Cilium dataplane for high-performance networking
• Network policies for microsegmentation
• Private clusters supported

6. New Billing Model (Effective October 19, 2025)

• Hosted control plane fee: $0.16/cluster/hour
• Compute charges based on actual node usage
• No separate cluster management fee
• Cost savings from Karpenter optimization

7. Node Operating System

• Ubuntu 22.04 for Kubernetes < 1.34
• Ubuntu 24.04 for Kubernetes >= 1.34
• Automatic OS upgrades with node image channel

Creating AKS Automatic Cluster

Basic Creation

az aks create \
  --resource-group MyRG \
  --name MyAKSAutomatic \
  --sku automatic \
  --kubernetes-version 1.34 \
  --location eastus

Production-Ready Configuration

az aks create \
  --resource-group MyRG \
  --name MyAKSAutomatic \
  --location eastus \
  --sku automatic \
  --tier standard \
  \
  # Kubernetes version
  --kubernetes-version 1.34 \
  \
  # Karpenter (default in automatic mode)
  --enable-karpenter \
  \
  # Networking
  --network-plugin azure \
  --network-plugin-mode overlay \
  --network-dataplane cilium \
  --service-cidr 10.0.0.0/16 \
  --dns-service-ip 10.0.0.10 \
  --load-balancer-sku standard \
  \
  # Use custom VNet (optional)
  --vnet-subnet-id /subscriptions/<sub-id>/resourceGroups/MyRG/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/MyVNet/subnets/AKSSubnet \
  \
  # Availability zones
  --zones 1 2 3 \
  \
  # Authentication and authorization
  --enable-managed-identity \
  --enable-aad \
  --enable-azure-rbac \
  --aad-admin-group-object-ids <group-object-id> \
  \
  # Auto-upgrade
  --auto-upgrade-channel stable \
  --node-os-upgrade-channel NodeImage \
  \
  # Security
  --enable-defender \
  --enable-workload-identity \
  --enable-oidc-issuer \
  \
  # Monitoring
  --enable-addons monitoring \
  --workspace-resource-id /subscriptions/<sub-id>/resourceGroups/MyRG/providers/Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/MyWorkspace \
  \
  # Tags
  --tags Environment=Production ManagedBy=AKSAutomatic

With Azure Policy Add-on

az aks create \
  --resource-group MyRG \
  --name MyAKSAutomatic \
  --sku automatic \
  --enable-addons azure-policy \
  --kubernetes-version 1.34

Karpenter Configuration

AKS Automatic uses Karpenter for intelligent node provisioning. Customize node provisioning with AKSNodeClass and NodePool CRDs.

Default AKSNodeClass

apiVersion: karpenter.azure.com/v1alpha1